Police Raid Oluwole, the Document Forgery Capital

Thirty-eight persons, who specialised in forging anything under the sun, were yesterday paraded in Lagos by Acting Inspector General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero. The suspects were arrested during a raid of the notorious Oluwole area of Lagos, by a combined force of four security agencies.

Stunned by the range of recovered forged documents, including 4,000 Nigerian passports, 50,000 assorted foreign cheques, 10,000 blank British Airways tickets and 10,000 United States Postal Money Order, the police boss said Nigeria would have been better off, if the skill, creativity and imagination exhibited by some of the young suspects had been channeled to other lawful endeavour.

On display were forged bank statement of accounts, several stamps and seals, various International passports, forged blank marriage certificates, death certificates, certificates of Incorporation of Companies, forged certificates of occupancies, International driver's licences, Postal Orders, foreign bank cheques, fake United States dollars, Printing plates for various foreign bank cheques, forged university degrees and NYSC certificates.

Also recovered were 1,500 foreign passports of countries such as Chad, Libya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Congo, Cameroun, Senegal, Switzerland, Gambia, South Africa, United States, Jamaica, Costa Rica and Ghana.Ehindero also mentioned the seizure of 500 computers, Customs documents, seals and stamps, photocopiers, binding machines and wraps of weeds suspected to be Indian hemp.

Pointing out that Oluwole area of central Lagos has, over the years, been notorious as criminal black spot where all forms of stolen and forged documents are openly traded, Ehindero, who addressed reporters and police officers at the officers mess, Onikan, said: "The last few years had witnessed the detriment of our national image, a high preponderance of forged documents emanating from Oluwole being used in complex advance fee fraud, scams, fake cheque scams, immigration scams etc in several foreign countries particularly in Europe, North America and Asia."

http://www.efccnigeria.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=535 (click for more details)

I read this on our national dailies and I was speechless.

I managed to say Wow!

Nigerians where are we going?

Curruption of the highest order.

A feather on Ehindero's cap.

Source:

This is just an excerpt of the news. I am just too shocked, that even I am out of comments.

Kudos to the new IGP. The police know most of the robbers and 419's, their haven, masters and collaborators. They should go after them with full "force".

Guys, guys, please give me a break here. All these have been in existence for years and security authoririties have known about the capabilities of these notorious characters for ages. It baffles me when I hear/see comments that air suprise about all these.  What I know that you all underestimate is that "the State" through it's security agencies have more than enough information on a lot of things you think they don't know. What's more they are involved in the circle of crime. 

Secondly, Nigeria is not  the most corrupt nation . No, No, No . Nigeria is the country where unrefined/crude forms of crime and corruption exists- this is a  better definition.

We are backwards in every aspect of it.  In the  Western world crude forgery is a thing of the past they did this years ago . we are just getting to better the skill, in Nigeria. When it comes to kick back, they did this years ago and better. Presently we are still behind because in Nigeria we openly collect kick-backs and money transfers to known accounts without conceiling it.
When it comes to corporate crimes  we are  still behind. In Nigeria top-shots just throw secrecy in the wind when doing it.  In the western world it's very very very technical, its so well done that  it's transparent  and often protected by the law.

What  I expect Nigerian's to be suprised at is the manner in which all this has existed all these years and "the state " knew about it. Just to clear the air The Nigerian Immigration and Police have seized  several fake passports  and recovered valid visa's on foreign passports at ports of entry/exit in times past- how come nobody ever investigated further - Tell me .

How come to this day, 85% of Nigerian's in Western countries all hide from the immigration agencies out there ? If they had valid papers would the hide ?

How come nobody ever thinks how very important documents find their way into the hands of funny characters that know less  about  themselves let alone the document they have in hand ?

Have you ever wondered how Nigerian's just  site here in Nigeria but are able to issue  cheques to their 419 accomplice oversees ?

We have EFCC ? How many foreign cases of 419 irrespective of the amount involved have they decided to investigate to a dead end, tracing Network, manner of dissemination, transfer routes , e.t.c .

Once I believed Security operatives with the knowledge,  would swarm on Cyber cafes and hit 419 syndicate, No it didn't happen I was wrong, instead we have heard of tales of how Security operatives occassionly run into Cafe's just to terrorize the innocent ones after collecting bribe from the real crooks to let them go.

Cyber cafe owners have paid fees that have exemted them from these raids. Tell me do you really think these fraud crimes would ever have been attacked, had the president  not  intervened because he was a victim ?

Nigeria,  I hail thee not!

Ehindero heard he was beign impersonated. He tracked it down to oluwole and decided to arrest them all. This is stupid! There is no sincerity of purpose. They made the arrests because d nefarious activaties(in oluwole) touch their skin as well. If not, no one would have cared.

Methinks, they only succeded in "relocating" oluwole.

We need to strive to encourage good behaviour and reject bad behaviour. Whe we see a child doing good, we encourage and not give in to bad behaviour. The same goes for government. We need to be positive in our outlook to recognise good and abhor bad.

I'm tired of Nigerians reading negativity into every good did. The fact of acknowledging good did does not mean we are blind to their bad deeds. In the end, we are not better than the people we are criticizing.

My fellow Nigerians, I have been living outside for some time now but whenver I hear or read something about Nigeria it is always negative. I have even had to be absent purposely from my work in order to avoid me working mates stares and jokes when Nigerians are shown nationwide on the network Tv because of drugs traffiking/forgery or very negative attitudes because no matter where I am I always speak very positively of Nigeria 'cause "no place is like home".

I think we should always encourage any positive measure taken by any Nigerian authority to rid Nigeria of these negative and nocive elements(fraudsters), so congratulations to NIgerian Police Force. Remember it is better late than never.

corruption should be tackled from the top (our leaders) that would improve the economy and then the petty fraudsters will fade away naturally.

I think they meant to write

"seventy-seven of the suspects, he said, were later set free because they had enough money at the time grease the police palms"

With all these mounting evidence, I'm beginning to think that the Yourubas, no matter how highly placed, have, as part of their DNA, the inherent nature of stealing. Apology to my Yoruba friends out there, but I'm just speechless.

Is it possible that Seun might want to pilfer something somewhere if given the opportunity?

What are you apologising for, when you have stylishly insulted them to their faces? A segment of one particular society messes up, and you turn round to say there is a defect in ALL members of that society, isn't that a bare-faced insult?

If someone said  everyone in the Niger-Delta people is either a thief or a kidnapper, simply because the militants in that area have been taking foreign oil workers hostage, would you say they were right or wrong?

They 'excess' in Jamb. . . . indeed!

As for the best Nigeria has to offer, well, those can be found in every ethnic group in this land!

@achike

how come all your people "excessed" in JAMB and became the best Nigeria has to offer, yet only you refused to EXCESS?